Windows delayed write failures to USB devices?

Ok, Got 512 more RAM for my home PC. Before I had 512 MB OCed to 400MHz no problems.

Initially I tried running dual channel DDR with 2 512 MB channels at 333MHZ but I would get an error almost immediatly when I tried to do ANYTHING with my USB drives. The error referenced a file called MFT$ on the root of my USB drive, and said 'delayed write failed'. It also hoses any directory I am in. For example it corrupted my MP3 folder and wouldnt even let me in it. It just said it was corrupt. chkdsk /F fixed it luckily.

I have taken 1 of the 256MB sticks out and went back to single channel 768MB @ 400 MHZ. I still get the delayed write error.

The RAM I am using is kingston HyperX PC3000 at 3x2x2x2.0 timings.

Have any of you windows Gurus have a fix for this?

Any help would be greatly apreciated.

//EDIT: I am running WinXP Pro SP1

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I was getting this all over the place, and then I found a microsoft patch for it that seemed to fix the problem. It's also available as a windowsupdate (I forget if it's critical or just "recommended")

MFT$ is a master file table. You can turn off delayed writes in XP, and that has fixed some things like that, but then you get to live with the system writing a lot of small chunks.

Which motherboard is doing this, please???? the other possibility is that you have a resource conflict with other things, so do you have USB mouse and printer and\or scanner, is the HD hooked to a hub (only root hubs, ie driect to computer are recommended for this, if you hook to a little hub that gives you multiple ports and you hook a HD up to that and the hub is busy, your HD gets write failures).

There was a USB compat fix for USB HDs and Burners in one of the Abit patches for the IC7-Max3, and I think I remember finding out there were other Abit boards that got BIOS patches for that also(IIRC, IC7 series got USB functionality patches in various flavors and BIOS update versions). If it is an Abit IC7-Max3 the new FlashMenu (v. 1.33) installs the new BIOS 14 fine.

Note that XP expects its boot drive to always be available, and expects HDs to be available on demand-- and unless you turn delayed write off, which would with a busy USB subsystem would cause Hd access issues, these write chunks could be large and random access in every sense of the word. Your HD could even have spun down if not externally powered with a transformer(delay due to spinup will cause XP to error out if it does not KNOW the drive is spun down, and sicne it did nto tell the drive to spin down, might be that also). By default, when you have a HD hooked up, XP tries to write when the system is less busy, up to a certain percentage of RAM and swap. If USB is busy when that delayed write happens, then you have set up exactly what you ar getting.

Without more info as to system and what else was happening, no better ideas to start things off with....

I was getting this all over the place, and then I found a microsoft patch for it that seemed to fix the problem. It's also available as a windowsupdate (I forget if it's critical or just "recommended")

I installed the patch first as that was the easiest and it seemed to do the trick so far. Sometimes it took a day or so before the error came up. Ill put it through some rigorrous read/writes when i get some time.

MFT$ is a master file table. You can turn off delayed writes in XP, and that has fixed some things like that, but then you get to live with the system writing a lot of small chunks.

Which motherboard is doing this, please???? the other possibility is that you have a resource conflict with other things, so do you have USB mouse and printer and\or scanner, is the HD hooked to a hub (only root hubs, ie driect to computer are recommended for this, if you hook to a little hub that gives you multiple ports and you hook a HD up to that and the hub is busy, your HD gets write failures).

There was a USB compat fix for USB HDs and Burners in one of the Abit patches for the IC7-Max3, and I think I remember finding out there were other Abit boards that got BIOS patches for that also(IIRC, IC7 series got USB functionality patches in various flavors and BIOS update versions). If it is an Abit IC7-Max3 the new FlashMenu (v. 1.33) installs the new BIOS 14 fine.

Note that XP expects its boot drive to always be available, and expects HDs to be available on demand-- and unless you turn delayed write off, which would with a busy USB subsystem would cause Hd access issues, these write chunks could be large and random access in every sense of the word. Your HD could even have spun down if not externally powered with a transformer(delay due to spinup will cause XP to error out if it does not KNOW the drive is spun down, and sicne it did nto tell the drive to spin down, might be that also). By default, when you have a HD hooked up, XP tries to write when the system is less busy, up to a certain percentage of RAM and swap. If USB is busy when that delayed write happens, then you have set up exactly what you ar getting.

Without more info as to system and what else was happening, no better ideas to start things off with....

I noticed after reading through a few posts here and on other sites that many people had the same video card I have (ATI Radeon 9600). I then recall having this problem shortly after I installed the card. Last night, I replaced the card with the original video card that came with my system (Nvidia), and VOILA! IT WORKS!

My Western Digital USB2/Firewire External Hard Drive (WDC1200) finally was able to transfer files back and forth without that dreaded "Delayed Write" error which was driving me crazy. My situation was a bit different than the one many of you are having. For one, I was connecting via USB2. 2nd, the problem didn't occur after transferring large files, but rather with relatively small folders (500 mb) that I was transferring.

I'm still not sure why the ATI Radeon interfered with the data transfer, but my guess is that it's eating up a chunk of memory that the HD uses. I'll try and put back the ATI card and update the drivers later on tonight. But for now, I'm a happy guy.

I also have the same problem with a 250 gb Freecom usb external hard drive and ....an ATI Radeon 9600!! I have the problem when the computer wakes up after hibernation. Until I installed the old software that came with the card everything was working fine. I will try to get new drivers for the card and see if i can also confirm this interference between both devices.